He broke off when Enrique started laughing. Not a laugh of joy, but a laugh of hysteria.
“It’s not even a book,” said Enrique.
Séverin paused. Everything in his mind went still. “What?”
“It’s a lyre.”
“A lyre,” Séverin repeated.
Once more, something stirred to life inside him. Something that felt dangerously like hope.
“But I don’t think it will give you what you want, Séverin,” said Enrique sadly. “The writing on the wall talked about the instrument summoning the unmaking. It could mean that everyForgedthing in existence would collapse.”
“It’s supposed to grant the power of God—”
“And God creates and destroys in equal measure.”
“So we make sure that onlyweplay it—”
Enrique flung out his hand. “You’re notlisteningto me! What about Laila? The Fallen House has been searching for someone of the Lost Muses bloodline—agirlwith an ability to read what others cannot. That’s Laila. If the Fallen House has taken her, what if it’s because they know what she can do? They might have even connected her to the lineage of the Lost Muses.”
Séverin’s head was spinning. Blood rushed through his ears. He had to get to her. He had to make sure she was safe.
“Then only we play it, guided by Laila—who might be the only person left who can use it—”
“No,” insisted Enrique. “Don’t you see how this could affect her if this instrument is played? She’sForged, Séverin. That could mean that she—”
Séverin’s gaze snapped to him. “How do you know that?”
Two things hit Séverin at once. One, that he’d never even stopped to consider the nature of Laila’s… making. To him, something Forged was inanimate. An object. Laila was life incarnate. The second realization was that Laila had told someone else abouther origins. Before, he was the only one who’d known. The only one she had trusted with that secret.
Enrique’s eyes flickered with guilt. He was hiding something. Séverin was sure of it.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Enrique crossed himself, looked upward and murmured, “I’m sorry, Laila. But he has to know.”
“Knowwhat?” demanded Séverin.
Enrique looked away from him. “Laila is dying.”
A beat passed. Then two. Those words poisoned the air, and Séverin didn’t let himself breathe as if one inhale might make those words true. And then, before he could speak, a hissing sound pulled his attention to the Forged net. The light quivered, flashing bright and dull. Just beyond it, the animals had lined up… tails whipping, hooves raking the frost-thick floor…
The net had begun to break.
32
ZOFIA
Zofia blinked a couple of times, her mind registering the unfamiliar surrounding in spurts: translucent floor, Lake Baikal’s gem-colored water rushing beneath the surface. Cold, slippery ice burned the skin of her palms. When she glanced up, light bounced off a sharp curve she didn’t recognize. Out the corner of her eye, she spied the tops of people’s heads, their scalps pressed up against the wall and eye level to her. Zofia turned away sharply and flung out her arms, only for them to slam into the walls encasing her. She was trapped. The word zipped through her skull, and she doubled over, nausea building in her throat.
Not again.
When she blinked, she saw the laboratory fires… the students screaming… the way her mind and body failed her when she reached to open the door.
No. No. No.
Zofia curled in on herself only for the sharp edge of Hela’senvelope to press against her skin, a stinging reminder of the people depending on her. Zofia forced herself to sit up straight, and remind herself of all that had happened. Her memories felt thready. She remembered the leviathan and the red candles, the writing on the wall… WE ARE READY FOR THE UNMAKING. After that, nothing. Zofia set her teeth and lay her palms flat on the ice floor, letting the cold shock her. She counted her breaths.One. Two. Three.She focused on the floor, counting the marbled trails left behind in the ice…fifteen, nineteen, forty-seven.
